Today I got an email from a girl. And sadly, this is a variation of an email I get way too often. So I thought I would share my reply in hopes that it reaches other girls that feel this way…

Dear Cherry,

I know you must get this question a lot but I was wondering how do you keep your self confidence so high? I’m almost 24 years old and I’m a size 22 and sometimes I can’t even look at myself in the mirror and sometimes this effects my relationship because my boyfriend will call me beautiful or pretty and I will just cry and say “no I’m not I’m fat and ugly” So I’m just wondering what I should do

I think it is normal for all women to hate certain aspects of themselves and their bodies. I think it is especially hard when you are younger and trying to find your place in life. And also even harder because of how body and media obsessed our society is. We all have our own insecurities and the days when we just don’t want to get out of bed. It’s normal. The only thing you can do is push forward. Don’t allow yourself to self destruct. And don’t push away a man who obviously loves and desires you because of your own insecurities. It is so true that you can’t be loved if you can’t learn to love yourself. My best advice is to focus on the positive. Look in the mirror and instead of seeing your cellulite or your muffin top– look at your beautiful skin, or your fabulous eyebrows, or you perfect little toes, or your nice round butt. Focus on the good– even if it is the tiniest little thing. And tell the bad stuff that you will focus on it tomorrow. And then don’t ever let tomorrow come. Baby steps sweetie. Baby steps.

The title of this post is a quote from Coco Chanel. And even though she said it almost 100 years ago, it still rings so incredibly true.

I get so many letters from young girls saying that they want to try the pinup style but they don’t want to be a “poser” or that they have already tried it and gotten picked on for being different. My answer to this is… SO WHAT. Do you really want to be friends with people that would pick on you and belittle you for just trying to be, well…you? I sure as heck hope not. And to be quite honest, I don’t dress pinup or vintage every single day. How boring to just be one way always!

I was the weirdo in high school that sat in my honors classes with a mohawk and pierced lip. I wore vintage prom gowns to school and told everyone that passed me that I loved them. I spoke my mind and fought against unjust rules and policies. I was a regular in the principals office– not because I was a trouble maker, but because I was a free thinker and the fastest way to foster change is to roll up your sleeves and get shit done. In fact, I was the only one of my class of 600 that the principal hugged when she handed me my diploma.

I wasn’t popular in school. I am not even sure if I could even call myself well liked. I had my years of being picked on and being laughed at. And I also had my years of making loyal, stand up, lifelong friends– who accepted me for the person I was on the inside and couldn’t care less about how much my jeans were or if I was wearing the Gaps signature scent.

And here I am, so many years later, and when I wake up in the morning, I know that I have led every single day of my life as me, and for me. And honestly, I am pretty damn happy. So I guess the moral of this mini saga is… BE YOURSELF. You only have one life to live and one person to be… so don’t waste it trying to figure out who THEY want you to be. If you are going to put energy into something, put it into figuring out who YOU want to be. If you want to wear a pencil skirt and combat boots, that’s ok. If you want to shave your head and pierce your tongue, that’s ok. Odds are, when you look back you will laugh and shake your head at yourself. But at least you won’t be a clone.

Becoming an individual when you are young is something that will stay with you for the rest of your life. Don’t let some clueless 15 year old peer dictate who you will become. Become who you are.

I just returned to my home after several weeks of traveling in Australia. I absolutely had THE time of my life and wouldn’t change anything for the world. But I did notice that traveling alone internationally was surprisingly lonely. I didn’t have access to communication with friends or family back home unless I had wifi, which wasn’t very frequent. That mixed with an extreme time difference left me in the dark and cut off from home for most of my trip.

I am about to embark on several tours and trips this year, and while none of them (so far) are international, I fear that loneliness setting in again. So here is my question to my loyal readers… How do you battle loneliness? This could be while you travel, while your partner travels, or just in general. I think it would be really awesome and therapeutic share sesh. Go!

So my pal Jessica (who owns Bomber Betty Cosmetics) was planning a trip to LA and she thought it would be fun to do a custom lipstick/gloss mixing day and get local girls involved. So of course my brain starts turning and figuring out how I can turn this into something new to PLAN!! (If you have ever met me, you know that planning is kind of my “thing”. But seriously. I plan everything and have a vast array of excel spreadsheets mapping out my life)

So I thought it would be really cool to find a warehouse space where we could get a few vendors in doing unique things (handmade items, nail art, sweet treats, etc.) and kind of make a ladies day out. So I put the word out to see if anyone would be interested in vending/attending, and lo and behold I got hundreds of replies! So this funny little idea turned into the Retro Bettie Bazaar. My friend Paulifornia has an amazing photography studio in Long Beach and he graciously let us use it to host this event. We had a month to put it together and it turned out better than I ever could have hoped for.

I ended up choosing 17 vendors. We had Bomber Betty doing lipstick mixing, I was doing vintage hair and selling prints/shirts, Tess Munster was selling prints, we had a brow girl, a nail artist, vintage clothing, jewelry, a whole table full of sweet treats (the brownie pops melted my face off with amazingness), nail polish, purses, aprons… I mean, we had a little bit of everything for the retro loving gal. And all of our vendors were amazingly sweet, helpful, and gracious to everyone around them and everyone that was hanging out.

We opened our doors at 10am and ladies started trickling in. I was already fully booked up with hair appointments but I didn’t really know what to expect as far as a turnout. We had 225 RSVP’s on our Facebook invite… but you never know! Within the hour our space was hopping! And throughout the day we had several hundred people show up. Ladies, their kids, and lots of men wandering around helplessly looking at their cell phones. At one point Paul offered to round them all up for a Home Depot run. But they all seemed to survive.

It shocked and pleased me to no end how many amazing, positive, inspiring women came through our doors in those 8 hours. I heard so many stories that captivated me and motivated me. I saw hundreds of smiling faces. Took dozens of pictures. Met lots of the lovely gals that follow me and was honored by the stories they shared of why they do. When I got home that night I couldn’t sleep. I was on a high from the day. And mostly it was just because my soul was so full and happy from such a positive, lovely day.

And so… I have opened a new excel spreadsheet and put my planning pants back on. The “Retro Bettie Bazaar 2: Bazaarer” is underway! We have already chosen August 30, 2014 for the day the magic will return. And we have expanded our space. So if anyone is interested in vending that does or sells something cool, please email me. And check out the handy dandy new Facebook page I have created!

At 4:30 this morning I drove a very dear friend of mine to the airport so she could fly home to her dying mother. It really got me thinking about death on so many levels.

When I was 24 I had my first heart surgery and when I woke up they told me I had flat lined for 20 seconds. So technically I was a goner for 20 whole seconds. Honestly my first feeling was that I was duped. I didn’t get a light at the end of the tunnel, or to float above my body, or to see my great grandma. All I got was a lousy printout of my heart stopping, some gross incisions and a promise of a second more successful surgery.

But while I sat in that hospital bed recovering, I realized how damn lucky I was at that moment. And I also realized how completely worthless my life had been up until that point. Sure I had passed some cool milestones, but all in all I felt that I hadn’t been true to myself and I hadn’t fought hard enough for the things that I wanted. Which led me not only to start fighting for the things I wanted to accomplish, but I also to start fighting to feel like what I was doing mattered.

And you know what? It was scary as hell! But after dying, you don’t have much to lose. And the main thing I realized is that nothing in life just happens to you. The only thing that you are going to get by sitting and waiting is fat. So I grabbed my life by its life-balls and I changed it completely. I graduated college, left a 5 year dead end relationship, packed everything I had in a uhaul, and moved to LA with $1000 to my name and no solid plan in site. But my goal was to find what truly made me happy. And here I am 5 years later and I wouldn’t change a single thing.

Now I am doing things with my life that I am very proud of. And I am working every day to put positive energy into the universe and to help other people that haven’t had the life punch that I had yet. And finally for once in my life I am blissfully, wholly, unapologetically happy. And all it took was 20 seconds with the big man upstairs.

This was not meant to attack anyone– skinny or fat. My point is this– looking at anyone besides yourself as a mark of being healthy and fit is silly. My best friend is a 6 foot glamazon who is strong and sexy and in amazing shape. But she has the body of an athlete. And no matter how much she diets or exercises, she is never going to be a size 2 waif. And that’s OK! Her strong, healthy body is gorgeous. Just as my thin, healthy body is gorgeous. Just as your curvy, healthy body is gorgeous… etc. Some upper skinny girls are healthy, some are dangerously unhealthy. And the same works in the reverse with chubby girls. Some are healthy and some are not. You can’t judge an ideal body based on aesthetics alone.

Being beautiful is about being the best version of YOURSELF. That means finding the right weight/size for YOU using a healthy diet and exercise. The beauty of being humans is that we are all different. No two of us will or ever should be exactly the same (yeah yeah, twins… I get it). So lets stop focusing on each other and start helping each other focus on ourselves.

Life is hard. As humans we all have triumphs and we all have struggles. My struggle is different then yours and it is not my place to judge the events in your life that have shaped and formed you. But my suggestion is this– take those struggles and the hurt and the anger and instead of throwing the same negative poison back into the universe by judging others, why don’t we take our experiences and create a positive and supportive community for each other?

I am going to be touring like mad this year… why not add on another 6 cities?? I am already doing a west coast tour of photoshoots, then an Australian tour, then a midwest tour of my pinup hair/makeup class and shoots, and now I am announcing a tour of the west! Check the flier for the cities I am hitting. Pretty darn exciting!

As most of you know, I work from home. While it definitely has it’s advantages (wearing pj’s all day, not having to deal with people, making my own hours, watching Melrose Place while I work, etc.)– it also has drawbacks.

Wearing pi’s all day sounds great in theory. But after about a week of doing so, you start to feel like a box car hobo. I always feel like it is a waste of perfectly good clothes to wear them when I don’t step foot out of my house. But there is also something demoralizing about wearing sleep wear all the live long day. I think my resolution is just being naked all day. Hope the neighbors are ready for my show.

Not having to deal with people is a double edged sword. While I don’t have to deal with irate and annoying people, I also rarely get human interaction when I am in “the zone.” Luckily I have a husband that comes home each day so I do get to speak at some point. But when he is on tour I swear if I open my mouth to speak at the end of a few days, dust will come out. Sometimes I just take trips to the post office so I can say hello to someone. And sometimes I even lust over the stories I see on Facebook of my friends dealing with shitty people at work (you got to talk to someone today?!?).

Making your own hours sounds good in theory as well. Until you realize that all hours are work hours. There are days that I work from the second my eye balls open to the second my head hits the pillow (and I have even been guilty of working in bed). I always feel there there is something to DO! And it has to be done NOW! I was raised to work hard and to follow through so I always feel guilty letting anything wait. I used to complain about working 12 hour days… how lucky I was not to work 24 hour days!

I have to be honest here, watching Melrose Place while I work is pretty awesome and has little to no drawbacks besides the fact that if I stop paying attention for a second, there will be a coma, a personality disorder, a fire, and a death that I miss.

All in all I love my job and I love the control I have over what I do. But sometimes I do get a little lonely. Perhaps I should get a dog.

So here I am back blogging on my site. I am going to make a conscious effort to blog and share more this year. Anything specific you guys want to hear about?

And while we are on the topic of “resolutions”– I have decided to make this year my most positive and productive yet. I am letting go of negative feelings and toxic relationships. I am forgiving the people that have hurt me and drug me down. I am focusing my time and energy on positive endeavors and focusing on showing love and appreciation for those around me that do the same.

I am far from perfect and I know I have/will make mistakes along the way… but I will keep my chin up and admit my faults and help those around me to do the same. I will be honest and compassionate. I will keep working to educate myself and to fight ignorance. I will share my struggles and glories in the hopes that it will inspire other people going through the same trials.

So I am super excited to announce that I have offered my vintage hair styling services to one of my favorite non-profits on Warped Tour– Keep A Breast! I will be doing easy vintage styles for free for the first ladies that are there to sign up. I will also be answering questions and sharing techniques. Check out the flier for times and dates…

So my awesome web designer Debbie and I have been working out some website kinks and I think you guys are going to love the new page we added…

I have started selling so many items that I wanted a page where you can get it all in one place. So we added a “shop” page where you can find all of the products that I sell directly in one easy place. That way you don’t have to bookmark a bunch of different sites– just one!! Be sure to check out the two new t-shirts I just added. They will only be available for a month, so be sure to get them while they are hot!

And if you have any suggestions for other things you would like to see me selling, please do let me know.

So I was thinking back today on past relationships. I think it is nearly impossible for your man to like ALL of your girlfriends. But I was thinking about the reasons they choose to dislike them.

I realized that in my most unhealthy relationships, my man hated my closest friends because they were “bad influences” on me. At the time I thought nothing of it. Some people just don’t get along. But now looking back I realize that the issue was not the friend, but the man and his insecurities.

If your man (or woman) truly trusts you, they know in their heart that you cannot be “influenced” to do anything you know to be wrong. Most of the time the influence excuse is just a cover for a man being intimidated by strong and intelligent friends. Odds are they see through his bullshit (even if you don’t) and he knows it. Through the years the men have come and gone. And the friends that most of the bad ones hated are the ones that are still holding strong.

I now have a man that dislikes certain people I associate with based off of them as humans. He doesn’t like how they treat other people, or how they treat me. He knows that none of my friends can sway my heart from loving him– even if I was dumb enough to pick any that wanted to. And he loves my closest friends as much as I do because I love them.

So take a look at your friendships and your relationships and figure out what the real issue is. Sometimes the truth is surprising!

I know I probably don’t have a ton of people keeping up with my blog over here yet but I was just sitting here thinking and I realized that I really do have the best followers ever. I hate calling people “fans” because it sounds so contrite and really at the end of the day, who am I? But I do have followers and I do get some of the most amazing comments, messages, and stories of inspiration. I am so lucky to be able to have done the things I have in my life and equally lucky to be able to share them with all of you guys.

So I just wanted to take a second to thank everyone that has stuck around and supported me and sent me kind messages and lovely things. I read and appreciate every single thing.

I just got off of a conference call with the people at LookGoodFeelBetter and I am over the moon with happiness to announce that they have decided to allow my line with Bomber Betty Cosmetics to partner with them! What this means is that we will be donating $1 from every sale of our lipsticks and glosses to this amazing organization and our contribution is officially endorsed by LGFB!

If you aren’t familiar with LGFB, they are an organization that helps to improve the self esteem and quality of life for people that are undergoing treatment for cancer. They give complimentary group and individual beauty sessions which include makeup, hair, and wig makeovers. Most importantly they help to boost the morale of people that are going through an otherwise demoralizing situation. I am a firm believer that a positive outlook goes a long way in the fight against this awful disease. I watched a close friend lose her battle with breast cancer and being able to wake up and have something positive to look forward to in her day made such a huge difference.

If you want to learn more about LGFB, please click the link above. I am so proud that we can be a part of helping women to gain back some confidence as they fight for their lives…

So last night we were sitting at home when we hear a knock on the door and it is a group of firemen asking if we have a car in our underground parking lot. Now as many of you know, a few years ago our old apartment burned down so my immediate reaction is panic.

We go running outside and it turns out that a water main has burst under the street outside of out apartment and it is pouring thousands of gallons of water down the hill and into our parking lot. It was actually pretty insane. The whole street was coming up and buckling like there had been an earthquake and there were firemen everywhere.

So as the parking garage is filling up, there is this one car left. Turns out she is out of town. The water ended up going all the way up to her windows. Poor lady– when she comes home she is going to be so bummed.

Eventually they got a firetruck down the hill and started pumping water out and at this point I ask a fireman exactly what is happening and what the next few days will be like as the reconstruct out street. He tells me that we will be without water for at least a few days so if I need to shower I better do it now. So in the middle of all of this madness, I run to my apartment and wash my hair like a maniac under a dribbling stream of lukewarm water. Just as I was finishing they turned the water off! And even though we will be waterless for a few days… I still feel like I won…

So I know a lot of people do the cheezy wedding DJ or a band, but Trev and I decided that we want to have complete control over the music that is playing from start to finish at our wedding. Music has always been a central part of our relationships with all of the tours that we have done so this is something that is really important to us.

Today I started making our playlists. I didn’t realize how many parts of the wedding you need music for! When people arrive, when you walk down the aisle, when you walk back down the aisle with your new husband, during the reception, first dance… The list goes on!

But I have to say I am having a blast doing this. I can’t wait to torture my friends and family with all of the bad/amazing music that Trev and I love. Haha. But seriously, it has been like walking down memory lane picking songs that are not only parts of my relationship with Trev, but also pieces of growing up. You better believe there are songs from both Grease AND Dirty Dancing in that sucker…

So I am sitting here just thinking human thoughts and I started to wonder what it is that you guys would like to read here? What part of my brain do you find the most/least interesting?

I want to make this more personal that my social networks but not so personal that it becomes “So I ate some cereal and then I took a walk” kind of boredom. Are you guys into personal blogs? Fashion blogs? Cooking blogs? Wedding planning ideas? All/none of the above?

(just click on this blog title to leave comments… I know it is a bit confusing)

Hard to believe that it is birthday time again. For the last few years I have dreaded my birthday. That feeling of getting older or feeling like I am passing my prime just wouldn’t let up. But this year has been one of the best of my life and I feel like it is only getting better… Sure, there are parts of my body I wish were still 18 years old. But I wouldn’t take my insecure 18 year old brain and soul back for anything. I am happy with the woman that I have become. I am secure with my self, my life, my relationships, my body, and my career. Life is good. Maybe that will help some of you gals going through that same quarter life crisis knowing that I finally made it out on the other side…

In other news…

I will be at Ink N Iron at the Queen Mary in Long Beach on Saturday, June 8th. I will be at the Steady Clothing booth from 2-4pm taking pictures and saying hello to anyone that is interested. If you see me walking around please stop me and say hi!